Happy 3rd Birthday to the Youth Opportunity Center!

In January 2017, CEDARS proudly opened the doors to the CEDARS Youth Opportunity Center, or YOC as it is affectionately known, in downtown Lincoln.

At the YOC, homeless and at-risk youth can “drop-in” to receive a hot meal, do laundry, follow hygiene routines, complete job and housing applications, receive education support, and simply sit and relax in a safe environment.

The YOC is operated by the CEDARS Street Outreach Services (SOS) team, which provides street-based assistance to runaway, homeless and at-risk youth in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Street Outreach staff work with youth between the ages of 13 and 21 years of age.

“My parents didn’t want me at home,” says one youth who has been helped by the CEDARS Street Outreach team. “I felt alone. Everything was coming down at once and I felt that no one was in my corner.”

Without pressure or judgment, Street Outreach staff members support youth experiencing homelessness as they work to leave the streets for safe shelter, secure permanent living arrangements, or to reunite with their families.

In the last fiscal year, the CEDARS Street Outreach Team made 2,989 contacts with youth experiencing or at risk or homelessness and supported over 200 youth who needed a more intensive level of support, meeting with staff at least three times during a month.

Street Outreach staff members can be contacted 24-hours a day. Advocacy, information, and support services are also available to youth in schools, juvenile court, juvenile detention centers, other human service agencies and churches.

“Homelessness is their circumstance right now,” CEDARS Street Outreach Program Director, Christina Lloyd says, “but it doesn't make the person who they are. It doesn’t define them. We’re honored to be here with the support of the community to assist them.”

Currently the team is seeking donations of individually wrapped snacks to hand out along with information to youth in need during monthly Food Markets in local schools. Additionally, the team is in need of full size shampoo and conditioner, toothpaste, bodywash, hairbrushes, and pull-ups sizes 2t-3t and 3t-4t. Donations can be dropped off at 6601 Pioneers Blvd.

For more information about how CEDARS helps kids in crisis and builds strong families, call 402-434-5437.

Privacy Policy

Our privacy policy is designed to assist you in understanding how we collect, use, and safeguard the personal information you provide, whether online or offline, and to assist you in making informed decisions when using our site. This statement will be continuously assessed against new technologies, ethical practices, and the needs of our users.
CEDARS respects the privacy of those who visit this site.

Information We Collect?
When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.

Personal Information You Choose to Provide
We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your e-mail address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, employment application, or a tax-deductible transaction.
If you choose to correspond with us through e-mail, we may retain the content of your e-mail messages together with your e-mail address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.
The names of donors are kept in strictest confidence. Whether the information has been provided online or offline, your information will never be sold, rented or exchanged with other organizations.
CEDARS never gives away nor sells information about our donors. If you choose to email us and provide personally identifiable information about yourself, CEDARS will use this information only to respond to your inquiry. CEDARS will not sell, rent or otherwise disclose that information to third parties unless such a disclosure is necessary for the purposes set forth in this Policy, by law or a policy or notice contained or associated with a specific CEDARS product or service.

Website Use Information
When you visit our site, our Web server automatically recognizes the domain name of your computer or Web-enabled device.
This website compiles conventional log files to monitor and assess activity including traffic and visits on, and related to, the site. This activity does not specifically identify any individual user without prior notice to the user through use of the site.
We do not use or disclose information about your individual visits to this site. The information collected is used to improve and enhance the content and services of this site.

Cookies
This site collects cookies to capture information about page visits. This information is anonymous and CEDARS uses this information only internally.
Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Information from the cookies is used to gauge page popularity, analyze traffic patterns on our site and guide development of other improvements to this site. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users.
When you visit this site CEDARS may use cookies and aggregate data to better connect with you on social media and other websites afterwards. To understand your privacy and security on Facebook please visit https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation. To understand your privacy and security on Google please visit https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/. To opt out of Google Analytics please visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
CEDARS does not require that you accept cookies, however some functionality on this site may be disabled if you decline to accept cookies.

Security
We use industry-standard encryption technology, including SSL encryption, when transferring and receiving payments and other sensitive data. We have security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of information that we have collected from you.
Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information.
Our organization’s values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.

Access And Correction
You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect and maintain in our database by e-mailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.

Accountability
If you feel that CEDARS is not living up to its stated privacy policy, you may contact us using the contact form provided within the site structure of this website.

Permission for Use Of Materials
The right to download and store or output the materials in our website is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means - mechanical or electronic - without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.

Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.